De-Mystifying “Family Devotions” – Part 3 (of 4)

This was originally a 2-part series, then a 3-part series (read Part 1 and Part 2), but for the sake of space, I’m splitting these five final tips on leading your family in daily devotions into two more posts. But before I proceed, I wanted to share a little bit of my personal story from boyhood, during a time when I was on the receiving end of the family devotions my parents faithfully led.

One of my earliest memories is hearing my dad lumber up the steep, squeaky stairs in our 100-year-old farmhouse at bedtime. Nearly every night, he would come up to read my brother, my two sisters and I a Bible story, mostly from the book The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes in those earliest years. After reading, he would always have us pray. Then he would pray and lovingly tuck us in bed. His prayers were soft, reverent and God-centered, and still are to this day.

Though today I would not enthusiastically endorse the content and structure of that book (more about that later), I will always have its beautiful color illustrations emblazoned in my mind. To this day, when I hear or read the story of the birth of Moses, I see the mesmerizingly rich illustration that accompanied that story, which is also on the cover of the book. The daughter of Pharaoh is wearing beautiful white linen and a white headband with a beautiful pink flower in it, bending over to lift the large basket out of the river rushes, while one of her handmaidens help. All of the paintings in the book are similarly beautiful and photorealistic, with fine detail in each scene that brings the stories to life in my mind’s eye to this day.

Occasionally, Mom would lead us when Dad was working late. The one thing I remember about Mom’s family devotions was the way she prayed. For mom, nothing was too small to thank God for. We didn’t have much, and she would earnestly thank God for what little we had. Mom’s prayers taught me that it’s impossible to be too thankful, and that every good and perfect gift comes from above.

So without further ado, two more from the list.

Integrate Scripture memory.

Admittedly for us, Scripture memorization has not been consistent. But the times we have done it have been incredibly fruitful. Kids have staggering memorization skills. From the time they are able to talk, they will memorize verses with impeccable accuracy and recall. Take advantage of their season of sharpness as children to let the Word of Christ take up residence and dwell richly in their young hearts and minds.

Here is a clip of our then-two-year-old daughter reciting one of the verses we worked on during family devotions.

Choose your children’s Bible storybooks carefully.

The children’s Bible storybook market is a bit overwhelming, as is the spectrum of homiletical approaches you will find out there. Earlier, I mentioned that I would not enthusiastically endorse The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes today. That’s because looking back, I now see that the book “siloed” the individual stories into isolated, unrelated “snapshots” from the Bible that had no obvious connection to each other, or to the larger storyline of the Bible. Each story was like a small keyhole into which you can peer, with little to no context about what led up to the story, or what flowed out of it. At the time, it was likely one of the only children’s story Bibles to choose from. So in no way do I fault Mom and Dad for using it.

Many great children’s Bible books have come on the scene in recent years that have broken away from this pattern of presenting the Bible as a series of unrelated episodes. There are many today that teach Scripture in the way it was intended: as one progressively unfolding Story, where each story within the Story is intricately woven into the fabric of the larger message about God’s redemption of a people for Himself which, of course, culminates in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

2 Comments

For the past two years, I’ve been reading the Jesus Storybook Bible of to Millie. I have some problems with some of the stories being out of context; however, it does present the Bible as a metanarrative, or one big story all related to Jesus.

Megan R
on October 14, 2010 at 1:45 pm

Our homeschool curriculum has us reading Egermeier’s Bible Story Book. My 6yo begs me to keep reading more than the scheduled daily sections because she enjoys the stories so much. There are discussion questions in the back to see how much the kids are picking up, as well as charts and maps.